Review: The Hazel Wood

Read if you like: dark, dangerous fairy tales come to life, fantasy stories grounded in the modern world, and characters you can root for.

The Hazel Wood | Melissa Albert

Series: The Hazel Wood

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Dark Fairy Tales
Released: February 8th 2018
Pages: 359
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice's life on the road, always a step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice learns how bad her luck can really get. Her mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD. 

To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began . . .

This took a bit of time to get going but I really liked it once it did. Suitably dark and fairy tale-y, with a couple of shocking twists (one was fun, one was not.) I liked the main characters (loved Finch) and there was enough secretive stuff to keep me guessing. The book really came into it own when it entered the Hinterland (fairy tale world), though - I loved all the darkness, bloodiness, and the world of Stories and their stories. 

My only complaint is I found the ending REALLY unsatisfying, and hope the sequel doesn't just spend time with Finch - I want Alice's story to continue too, she deserves so much more than this book!

Clever and inventive and dark as fairy tales are meant to be. A twisty, dangerous tale.

4 stars

Review: The Hunted

Hunted | Meagan Spooner

Published by: Harper Teen, March 14th 2017

Genre: Fantasy, Retellings, Fairy Tales, Magic

Pages: 352

Format: Ebook

Source: HarperTeen, via Edelweiss

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them. 

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance. 

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

A perfect, delicate blend of Russian folklore, Beauty+The Beast, and an altogether new kind of magic.

I can't rave about this book enough. The setting is vast and detailed and so well built from the very beginning. The relationships between Yeva and her family, winding through the whole book, works so well with the dangerous, seductive, heartfelt story of Beast and Yeva. I just love everything - the magic, the tragedy, the heartbreak lying just under the surface, the huntress Beauty, the tormented Beast, the slow-burn liking to slow-burn love. This book is pure magic. I want to read it all over again.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★★

Spinning Starlight (ARC Review)

Spinning Starlight | R. C. Lewis

Published by: Disney Hyperion, October 6th 2015

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Retellings, Fairy Tales

Pages: 336

Format: Ebook

Source: Disney Hyperion, via Netgalley

Sixteen-year-old heiress and paparazzi darling Liddi Jantzen hates the spotlight. But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it’s hard to escape it. So when a group of men show up at her house uninvited, she assumes it’s just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired.

Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi’s vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word and her brothers are dead.

Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home—a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers’ survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back?

Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans strings the heart of the classic with a stunning, imaginative world as a star-crossed family fights for survival in this companion to Stitching Snow. 

Ehh, I didn't mind this but I wouldn't rush out to buy it. It's SO SLOW in the beginning, the MC does a whole lot of nothing, and the plot felt pretty flat despite the high, personal stakes - in the beginning. When it gets to around halfway, and the MC leaves behind the bland love interest, she really comes into her own. The story gets exciting, there's actual danger, and it's fairly interesting.

I actually understood the alien transport thing in this book. It was similar to Polaris's alive alien transport thing, but handled in a way that made sense, or connected with me. AKA I wasn't completely lost and weirded out like in Polaris. The aliens in this book are imaginative and different to each other in both appearance and cultures. I liked the sister saving all her brothers story, but I did feel she could have dealt with it better, i.e actually tried to tell someone what was happening. I get it was a bad situation but there were ways. Also to say this was in the same world as Stitching Snow it did NOT feel like it. Worlds felt totally different, and I didn't like this as much.

An alright story overall. I kinda understood the end, kinda didn't, and kinda liked the characters, kinda didn't, but it wasn't the worst book I've read.

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world ★★★☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

3 ish stars

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Saruuh Explores NA: A Court of Thorns and Roses (ARC Review)

A Court of Thorns and Roses: A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas

Published by: Bloomsbury Children's, May 5th 2015

Genre: NA, (very upper) YA, Fantasy, Retelling

Pages: 416

Format: Ebook

Source: Bloomsbury, via Netgalley

The breathtaking start to a seductive high-fantasy from New York Times bestselling author of Throne of Glass series.

Feyre’s survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price.

Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre’s presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.

*is an inconsolable puddle on the floor*

WHY DID IT HAVE TO END??

I put off reading this book for SO LONG because I thought it would never live up to my expectations. And it didn't deliver exactly the story I'd expected but it was way better, way way better, than any of my wildest dreams.

A Court of Thorns and Roses is perfect. The romance is natural and right and just lovely to read. The magic is traditional and feels vast and unpredictable. The main character is a sarcastic, smart badass whom I love dearly. And the villain is TERRIFYING. Everything about this is flawless.

Especially Tamlin, who I fell in love with completely. He's gruff and caring and everything a beast in Beauty and The Beast should be. But I also sorta accidentally love Rhysand, too, and I don't know when or how or why that happened, but it did. And I CANNOT WAIT for the next book, because I suspect it'll have loads more Rhys in it!!! But also Tamlin! Whom I adore, and whose story I am so eager to see unfold.

This book is so more than a series opener. Not only does it build up the world, characters, and threat without a single fault, but it delivers a series-finale-style ending IN THE FIRST BOOK. It's thrilling and scary as hell and my heart was in my throat at least three times. I can't say enough about this book.

Just read it.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world-building ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★★

This book counts towards my Fairy Tale Challenge!

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Beauty and The Beast (Faerie Tale Collection) (Review)

Faerie Tale Collection: Beauty and The Beast | Jenni James

Published: June 4th 2012

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Retellings, Shifters

Pages: 142

Format: Ebook

Source: Free on Amazon

A prince by day and a wolf by night—

Prince Alexander has been turned into a werewolf and has one year to find someone to love the beast and break the spell, or he will be a wolf forever. He has nearly given up achieving the impossible, knowing no girl would ever fall in love with such a monster.

Just when he is about to abdicate the throne to his cousin, he meets Cecelia Hammerstein-Smythe, while a wolf, and begins to hope for the first time in months. Can he balance both worlds as a human and beast, gaining the love and trust of a girl who has every reason to despise him?

Cecelia detests the prince. She only knows Alexander as the arrogant monarch—the tyrant who has made her life miserable—though perhaps he's changed right before her eyes. He's not as full of himself as he once was. The prince is gentle now... but then again, so is the beast.

I only really got this because it was free and counted towards my fairy tale challenge but I'm pretty glad I picked it up! 

Beauty and The Beast is a cute, traditional take on the fairy tale. Alexander is a prince forced to turn into a beast each night, while Cecealia is a typical village girl with a huge heart. I liked how Jenni James made the beastly aspect of the prince not his wolf form but his crappy personality as a human. He really wasn't that nice a guy, but by being trapped in beastly form he changed as a human. I liked that. I also liked the drama of Cecealia loving the beast but not the prince. I wasn't entirely sold on either character, but I did enjoy their romance and rooted for them towards the end.

Not a particularly outstanding or unique retelling, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. No world-building though!

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world building ★★☆☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

This book counts towards my Fairy Tale Challenge!

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Stitching Snow (Review)

Stitching Snow | R. C. Lewis

Published by: Disney Hyperion, October 14th 2014

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Retelling

Pages: 338

Format: Hardback

Source: Purchased

Princess Snow is missing.

Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back—but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.

Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.

When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid. With the galaxy’s future—and her own—in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival. 

This book has triggers for rape and abuse.

I was pretty excited for this book, but for some reason I assumed it was fantasy at first. I probably automatically saw fairy tales and thought fantasy. I'm dumb. This is a true science fiction novel, with robots and spaceships and alien planets. And computer engineering!! It's super fun.

Stitching Snow is drawing a buttload of comparisons to Cinder but I felt a much stronger connection to Cress in Essie, the main character of this novel. I understand Essie and Cinder are both running from their pasts, a crown, and murderous family members but they're nothing alike. However, if you love the ladies of the Lunar Chronicles, you'll love Essie. She's like a blend of all three of them (Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress I mean.)

Now enough talking about another series. Stitching Snow is a funny, fast, yet often dark story. I love how it's humourous in many parts but doesn't hesitate to go into the darkness of humanity. Essie is at once serious and lighthearted, brave and reluctant. She doesn't want to face her past and return home but she's strong and courageous enough to do the right thing. I loved that about her. I loved Dane too, but not as much as I thought I would. I never fell for him, though I am rather fond of him. That's pretty much the only reason this isn't a five star review - I felt for the characters but I didn't fall for them, and my consuming love of a book always hinges on that.

Here's some other things I loved about this book: the unique planets, how effortlessly the settings were built without overwhelming the story, how even minor characters had personality, how high impact the action scenes were.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all fans of spaceships and brave ladies.

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world building ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★☆

This book counts towards my Fairy Tale Challenge!

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